Boston Globe on school choice

The Boston Globe has a series of articles and videos on the Boston School choice system, and the experience of getting in, or not, to your first choice schools: GETTING IN: INSIDE BOSTON’S SCHOOL ASSIGNMENT MAZE.

Part of the message is that there aren't enough pre-K seats to fill the demand. And, as one parent points out, "the lottery is not the problem, the problem is that there are bad schools."

 Here are the articles so far, in reverse order of appearance (I make a 45 second appearance in the video in the "Relief..." story, starting just about minute 1:15...and then again for a moment right at the end, at 5:20):

Relief, dismay, even guilt greet student placements

Boston public schools’ lottery, a system designed to distribute students without bias, can inevitably cause divisions among winners and losers.

Taking a chance, making a choice

The lottery assigning kindergartners to classrooms is designed to be fair, but with too few good schools to choose from, too many opt to leave.

Selection process starts with choices, ends with luck

In the Boston public schools, kindergarten registration can be a saga that plays out from the time a child is 3.